~ issues of relevance to Waikanae people

the biggest challenge facing the next council

For those who haven’t seen the British comedy series from the 1980s Yes, Minister and Yes,Prime Minister, we highly recommend buying or hiring the DVDs.

The shows featured an idealistic Cabinet Minister whose attempts to do things for the people who elected him are constantly thwarted by the head of his department (Sir Humphrey Appleby) and media secretary (read ‘spin doctor’) who believe that the public should be taxed to provide massive salaries and perks for the considerable department staff, themselves in particular. The real British PM of the era, Margaret Thatcher, was said to be such a big fan of the show she took tapes of it home to study.

The local equivalent of Sir Humphrey Appleby is KCDC Boss Dougherty under whose tenure, Kapiti rates have risen by a massive extent. Some of this was due to stupid ideas by the council led by Mayor Rowan, but not all the blame rests with them.

Getting Dougherty under control with rigorous scrutiny and regular reading of the riot act to him will be the biggest challenge that the next council is going to have.

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5 thoughts on “the biggest challenge facing the next council”

What do I want from our council – Just value for the rates money I pay. And I haven’t felt that for many years.
Some of the things I would like to see from the new mayor are:-
A 10% across the board staffing reduction of the council staff – Staff and elected members.
Rates increases no more than inflation.
Look at selling assets to reduce debt
No But No people on the council that are not elected in – or have patsy jobs made up for them.
Capital value used for setting rates.
Would piping Otaki river water be cheaper than a dam. And dam the water meters
User pays – all for it, rate reductions for mowing council berms and not dumping storm water into the Waikanae storm water system. These soak pits cost big bucks.
As previous and current councils cannot be trusted with money, any project costing over say $750,000 should be by ratepayer referendum. Not a perfect way but better than nothing.
I am sure there are many more things but better to send the message of what we would like to see rather than prospective mayors stating just some of the things that they would do, even if they may change their mind when comeing to the vote.

With the Post Office now charging $1 per letter each way plus printing and admin time, each referendum would probably cost about $100,000 — a threshold figure of $1 million or more seems better.

The next council needs to go through both the staff list and other items in the expenditure side of the budget. “Nice to have, but not essential — out it goes” A lot of pet likes will be included in the latter, but too bad.

The council posts rate demands out and the internet is there for all. The council also provides free internet to all in its libraries.
I agree that there is heaps of nice to have pruning that can be made – but isnt. Are libraries nice to have or essential in this electronic age, where online schooling is now in vogue and banks are closing branches?

Even though few kids these days would even think of reading a book, disestablishing the libraries would create an uproar — accusations of cultural cretins and the like. One to look at a few years further along the track.

There will not be a calling to account of Dougherty unless the ‘inner core’ of the prior council (as Gurunathan called it), and several of their friends also running, are decisively rejected by the electorate , and that certainly means neither Church nor Welsh as mayor.

There are many candidates of integrity running; many first timers and several incumbents. There is a choice to elect a council with integrity.